Post 20 Games Thoughts:

So I'll send you to Trent's Blog for a summary of us playing 20 games from Friday night (technically Saturday as we started at like midnight) to 3:30pm Wednesday. We included several games of Bloodbowl and a pair of 40K games, on which I can comment.

The 40K first: in the two games I took the Veterans list I drew up. Essentially, it's six units of Veterans kitted out with special & heavy weapons, with 4 powerfists and 2 chimeras thrown in there. My random thoughts:

-The list is a little stronger than I thought, but also I was playing against Trent's nurgle marines on foot. And foot mounted armies are just the punks of this edition.

-The wound allocation rules for 5th ed are dumb.

-the big weakness to the veterans is, as I expected, they're still in flak armor. My guys are Mordians so it didn't feel right. Still if I played this list in the future, I'd give them carapace.

-power fists probably get dropped. If I gave them all carapace it might be worth it, but at a 5+ save they don't go on veterans. Often I'd die to a man before I could get to Init 1.

-Ogryns rock again. The pendulum swings.

-The wound allocation rules for 5th ed are dumb.

-Ratlings are fun again, with the sniper rifles being rending. They might've been rending in 4th and thus even better, but I honestly don't remember. Played like 10 games of 4th ed.

-The template weapon rules are weird. It makes my Russ and Basilisk more accurate because the deviation is reduced by BS and the tempate's big enough I'll probably still hit something. But the flip side is my grenade launchers seemed less accurate when firing the frag grenades. That's not true I know, but it felt that way.

-Oh, and: The wound allocation rules for 5th ed are dumb.


While playing at the store, we happened to be playing next to That Guy. He felt the need to explain to me that he hated guard and always rooted for the other player on the table when Guard were on the table. A direct qoute from our conversation:

Him: "Even when I'm playing my marines against Guard, I root against Guard."

Me: "Uh. . . if you're playing, wouldn't you always root for yourself?"

(later...)

Him: "I don't cheese out and play to win. I take weird stuff nobody takes. Like I put my command squad on bikes and then take an apothecary so my commander has Feel No Pain."

Trent: (Later when we got home) "Yeah cause nobody does that."

(I wish he'd said it at the game store. He's too much of a nice guy.)


Anyway, part of That Guy's lecture were how people move the Valkyrie onto the board 6" and then fire all 3 TL lascannons. His words: "the model's too long, so that a 6" move won't get it on the table."

So I asked Trent to build me 2 custom flying stands for my Valks. The first will be low to the ground with the access hatches 2" from the ground so my storm troopers can get out. The second will be like 8" tall and angled so a 6" move will get the thing on the table from nose to wingtip. If someone's gonna get chincy I'll politely ask him to point out where in the rules is says that a skimmer can't fly at a vertical angle.

Seriously, don't be a douchebag because GW built a model not compatible with its own rules. And don't say they built it that way intentionally, to balance the Valk. You're giving GW too much credit.


So, onto Bloodbowl: played 3 games with my new Desert Dogs (using the Norse rules). They're fun, very much my team. They can throw the ball pretty well and thump people pretty good. But there's going to be a lot of whack-a-mole with them. Going from AV 9 Ogres to AV 7 norse is a rough transition...

We also playtested two new pitches for Kublacon: Moot Bowl and Ulthuan Bowl. Moot Bowl has the Halfling building little hidey holes that people can run through bypassing enemies. Essentially they're teleport pads. They're fun, but the rules needed a bit of work.

Similarly Ulthuan bowl needed some work. The elves demand TDs and if you don't score quick enough they start zapping your with a wizard's lightning bolt. Again, we hammered out some details and I think people will like them.